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Wednesday, July 29, 2009 Midnight - 6 AM
Mu-Cha Farmers’ Tie-Guan-Yin Tea Making Competition
Ching-Yu found out about an excellent opportunity for us to see first-hand how tea is taken from the plant to the drinkable tea form, almost entirely by hand with very little machinery. There is a competition every year in a place near Taipei called “Mu-Cha” where farmers make a famous type of tea, known as “Tie-Guan-Yin,” which means Iron Goddess Tea in Chinese.
These farmers each start with about 2kg of fresh leaves and are responsible for drying the leaves in the sun for a few hours, roasting them while controlling how much fermentation and oxidation the leaves will undergo, rolling the leaves into little balls, and create a final product to be entered in the competition. Professional tea judges than sample every competitors tea by smelling and tasting the final tea and can instantly decide which is best. Even though my flight landed only hours earlier, we decided this was a unique opportunity to see the whole process from leaf to cup. Since the competition involves the whole process, the farmers started at 10am the day before with their raw leaves. By the time we arrived (around midnight) they were almost in the final stages of drying and rolling.
As Ching-Yu is so wonderfully displaying above, they had a huge poster with the entire process illustrated. It was a good reference to get acquainted before we jumped in. I took picture of each step and consolidated it into one collage for easier viewing.
The text is hard to read, here are the steps from left to right, top to bottom:
1.Tea leaves 2. Solar withering (sun drying) 3. Shaking/Stirring 4. Panning
5.Rolling 6. Further rolling the leaves in a cloth bag 7. Primary drying 8. Drying
9.Removing stems/undesired pieces 10. Secondary Drying 11. Raw Tea 12. Finished
One of the tea farmers was nice enough to give us a full, no-detail-spared tour of the tea competition.
Here he is explaining everything to Ching-Yu, including the process of picking the tea leaves and drying them in the sun. According to this tea master, the absolutely most significant difference in the taste of the tea revolves around the tea leaves are dried under the sun. This heavily influences the fermentation and oxidation of the tea leaves. The amount of time the leaves spend under the sun is heavily influenced by the heat, light, and humidity outside. Only the most seasoned tea leaf-drying veteran can tell when the leaves’ time has come, which is done by looking, feeling, and smelling the leaves.
The process continues with these large, gas powered roasting devices. They are basically like very very hot drying machines with no doors - but instead of paying $1.25 to nearly dry a single pair of jeans because your landlord is too cheap to buy a better dryer (who keeps that many quarters around anyway?), it’s like precisely drying a bunch of tea, really fast, with no quarters required.
These roasting machines significantly change the fermentation/oxidation process, so carefu
monitoring is needed. Once the whole leafs are “panned,” they are rolled in the green machine to the right, which is a huge round hunk of iron that kneads the leaves over the ridges in the bowl. This takes a leaf shape and rolls it lengthwise into a stick that expands back to a leaf-shape when in hot water. For some teas, this will be their final shape (more to come later). For other teas, such as this Tie-Guan-Yin variety, it will need to be rolled much more to created a final ball shape. These balls still expand in hot water - which is why some people call this “gunpowder” tea.
In fact, a sign of a high quality tea (rolled once or into a ball) is one that reverts back to a full, undamaged leaf shape. If the tea is made incorrectly and the moisture of the leaves not properly controlled, the rolling process will fragment the leaves.
In the third photo, you can see how the rolled leaves are returned to the roasting machine and heated again before the next stage. The brave tea-makers shove their hands in the center of the machines every 30 seconds or so, smelling and inspecting the tea for the moisture content.
This is where another skill set comes in. Most of this secondary rolling (to make the balls) is done by machine, which is why this competition truly demonstrates craftsmanship.
Left to right, going down:
The dried, single-rolled leaves are placed into a giant cloth which is held by the tea-makers’ toes and packed into a ball while sitting on the bamboo tea mat. The ball is the twisted and choked off into a tight ball. The feet are instrumental is this process to pack the tea ball as tight as possible. When this process is completed, the ball is rock hard.
The balls of tea are then placed in a secondary heating device and removed rather quickly to inspect the tea again (bottom right). This process is repeated 30-50 times until the tea leaves are in a total ball shape and have the proper amount of moisture.Here’s a question: what is the last type of person you’d ever expect to meet at a tea farmers’ competition in the middle of Mu-Cha, Taiwan? If you guessed a tea-master-in-training from Idaho, U.S.A.? If so, you’re absolutely right!
It was as real surprise and pleasure to meet Glenn, a local tea expert know as the Taiwan Tea Guy. He has been living in Taiwan for quite some time and has a real passion for tea. It was really nice for both of us to have him there... Ching-Yu could spend more time learning about the tea process without me constantly interrupting her saying.. “Huh? What did he say? Translate that for me.” Glenn pretty much gave me a run down of the whole process. I also got a chance to ask some burning questions I had: what does this machine do, why do people use their bare feet, is that why every tea master’s tea tastes unique? (to which he responded, “Well, I am from Idaho, so mine tastes like potatoes.” Funny. Disgusting, but funny.)
Glenn let Althea and I take a shift from him and work his tea for a while. It was very labor intensive. As Glen suggested, never try to barter tea prices too low in Taiwan.
(some of the pictures are pretty low-resolution, sorry they are so small!)
Unfortunately, we had a full agenda the following day and were unable to attend the tea-off competition the next day. I am sure the teas were all great, those guys were working hard for 24 hours straight. Many of them gave the disclaimer that tea needs much more than 24 hours to make in the best way - the 24 hours was just to make the competition more feasible. But they have been doing it for many years and seem to love coming back every year.
Here are the guys who showed us around and coordinated our being able to come to the competition. Many thanks!
Outside the entrance to the competition! Nothing says “Welcome Tea Masters!” than a giant multicolored inflatable entrance!
(be sure to check out the photo album to see larger sized photos - comments are appreciated :)
This article is published in the following three locations:
1. West Meets 東 Voting Website Day 1 (If you like this article or our team, please go vote for us here )
2. West Meets 東 Day 1 Mu-Cha Tea Competition
3. Althea's Wretch Blog Day 1-1 Mu-Cha Tea Competition
Welcome all the comments! Thanks for your support!
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Wednesday, July 29, 2009 12:30 PM - 6:30 PM
Wen-Shan Tea Farm to Learn about PouChong Tea
Wen-Shan tea farm is a government affiliated tea farm dedicated to everything tea: from growing it, roasting it, experimenting with different stages of fermentation, etc. They are also set up for tea education. It sounded perfect for us... Continue reading to see what I mean.
Ching-Yu was able to contact them and let them know about our interested in tea and why we chose it as the theme for our contest. They were very happy to have us come for the afternoon.
They knew we would be hungry when we arrived. It’s a great place to go if you’re hungry... these guys really can cook! Their specialty: ANYTHING cooked with tea. That’s right, tea leaves, tea oil, you name it. Not only did they cook for us, they invited us to watch them cook.
They took our visit very seriously. We arrived and they were still intensely deciding what the lunch menu would be. The cook (on the left, wearing the apron) is an absolute pro at cooking things made with tea. The gentleman in the green is the resident tea master. We would eventually spend most of our day with him.
Here are just a few of the shots we took while he cooked. He moved fast, and we didn’t want to get it in his way... taking good pictures wasn’t easy!
Top right: a bottle of tea oil, similar properties to olive oil (i.e, great as a dressing, not good for frying)
Top and middle: Deep fried tea leaves! That’s right, fresh off the bush, mixed with a tempura-like batter and deep fried. Not easy! Batter can easily fall off slippery leaves.
Bottom Right: Preparing a rice noodle dish served with a dressing made with tea oil, Chinese celery (much smaller) and some fresh herbs.
Here is the feast!
Top: Chicken braised with stir-fried ginger, spices, and tea oil. Garnished with oranges, a fresh flower, and, you guessed it: tea leaves!
Middle: Left: slices of shrimp-studded tofu, peapods and carrots. All steamed and dress with a tea-oil based dressing. Very, very tasty. In the center is the whole spread. The rice noodles are shown on the right.
Bottom: On the left, the deep-fried tea leaves. Surprisingly light and crunchy, not very greasy tasting. On the right, boiled bamboo shoots topped with regular mayo (mayo in Taiwan is soy-based and often eaten with boiled bamboo, shoots, asparagus, etc. ALso topped with a secret special green tea-infused mayo (green). All this is topped with candy sprinkles. Not sure about about one... tasty, though!
This was by far our favorite and certainly the most unique dish: the green buns shown in the upper right are the “dragon” - the mouth to be precise. They are made from green tea powder, hence the green color.
The meat shown (bottom left) is a delicious slice of pork, slow cooked with various spices, including dried tea leaves. The pork represents the pig. I am sure I didn’t need to explain that. Anyway, the pork is placed in the dragon mouth and then you have: Dragon biting Pig. To add another animal, the cook wrapped the hot pork in aluminum foil shaped like a peacock (top right). Finally, on the bottom right, is Ching-Yu biting Dragon about to bite Pig wrapped in Peacock.
This was honestly one of the most memorable feasts I will ever have - and I am sure it is hard to find any place that can reproduce it.
Next on the agenda was an instruction on how to harvest the tea leaves. As we were eating, a group of kids who were visiting the tea farm as part of a school trip were out in the fields. By the time we got out there, all the “good leaves” were gone. Or maybe that’s just the excuse I used when my basket was nearly empty after a half hour.
This tea master lived up to his title. He was fast, efficient, and took his job seriously. No pauses for pictures or translations (that’s my second excuse). He strapped wicker baskets to our backs and it was time to pick.
Two rules: snap the stems off, don’t tear them (top right). Rule two: pick sections that have two leaves, one on either side, with a baby leaf in the center as Ching-Yu is demonstrating here.
Future stars:
After we picked the tea, we had a review of the process: We already learned the basics the night before at the Tie-Guan-Yin Tea competition, so it was interesting to see how differently they did it for the type of tea they specialized in at Wen-Shan, Paochoung Tea.
While walking back to the tea factory, the tea master pointed out an interesting plant. Embarrassingly, I recognized one of the many words he said from my limited Mandarin vocabulary: long she lan (龍舌蘭） = tequila! I was proud to be the only who realized that was an agave plant. Not the exact same kind used for making tequila, but at least in the same family. Who knows, maybe I could partner with the Tea Farm and start producing Taiwanese tequila. According the rules of the farm though, I am sure I would have to add tea flavoring some way.. hmmm. TEA-Quila anyone?
The tea master reiterated what we had learned previously: the amount of time the leaves stay out in the sun directly effects the oxidation and the subsequent intensity of the fermentation and flavor. It is important during this time to “toss” the tea leaves so all areas are exposed equally. There is a specific method he tried to teach me, which caused all the leaves to flip into the center in a neat little pile.
Nonetheless, I suck at it and looked more like I was throwing a pizza in the air. He told me that I was the only person he ever witnessed to cause the leaves to the opposite: jump outward and off the tray.
As mentioned before, this visit to Wen-Shan Farm was very all-encompassing. One of the most thorough parts of the trip was the lesson on how to properly drink tea, as well get acquainted with all the accessory used to serve tea. For the sake of keeping this blog article from becoming a large novel, I will share what we learned in blog articles to come... we drank enough tea during this journey to have plenty of opportunities.
We had a great time at Wen-Shan Tea Farm. It was a great place for us, and we would love to come back and check out their swimming pool (bottom right) and other cool stuff they had on the farm - the kids that were there sure had a great time.
Real tea masters wear THREE hats!
Thanks!!
(be sure to check out the photo album to see larger sized photos - comments are appreciated :)
This article is published in the following three locations:
1. West Meets 東 Voting Website Day 1 (If you like this article or our team, please go vote for us here )
2. West Meets 東 Day 1 Wen-Shan Tea Farm
3. Althea's Wretch Blog Day 1-2 Wen-Shan Tea Farm
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Wednesday, July 29, 2009 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM
Mao-Kong Tea House for Gin-Shan Tea and Tea Snack
Mao-Kong is a place like none other. Right outside of of Taipei (see Taipei 101 in the distance above), the best way to experience Mao-kong is to drive up the winding mountains roads at night and pick from any of the hundreds of popular tea shops along the way. Just make sure to read the signs (left) as there are multiple roads with different color schemes to direct you to your tea house. We did pretty good, and only had to turn around once :)
I (Ben) did get pretty car sick going up the mountain and we had to stop a few times while I puked. I guess you can blame the driver for going too fast.... It took me a little bit to get over my spins once we got to the tea house (see Ben pouting below).
The particular tea shop we went to was recommended to us by the tea master at Wen-Shan tea farm (left: Ching-Yu is standing outside the entrance). It was near the top of the mountain and had amazing views, both inside and out.
To get to your table, you had to use the stepping stones to cross the pond that occupied the middle of the tea house, which was filled with fish and turtles.She looks a lot more natural on that tiny little bridge... I had to duck down to fit.
Our little tea room, with an amazing view of the Taipei skyline. We ordered a new kind of tea we hadn’t tried, which was called Gin-Shan Tea, a kind of Taiwanese Oolong Tea.
Gin-Shan Tea is a very well-known Taiwanese tea. Since it can be planted in the high mountains (800-2600m above sea level), some people also categorize it as a kind of high mountain tea,. Gin-Shan Tea is mainly produced in Nantou and Chiayi Counties, which are close to Taipei. The Tea Research and Extension Center cultivated this breed for 40 years and successfully created a new breed in the 1980s and named it as "Tai-Cha No. 12" (The 12th Taiwanese tea breed created by the center). Gin-Shan's Tea leaves are chubbier, more tender, and the dry tea leaves have a shinier green color. The tea tastes fresh with a very natural light milk and osmanthus (a flower native to Asia) fragrance. This special flavor is very popular especially for women and young consumers. And Ben. He sure loves his osmanthus flower.
Following the teachings of the tea master at Wen-Shan Farms, I attempted to serve the tea to Ching-Yu in the most professional way. (Left: putting the proper amount of tea into the pot; Center: checking on the leaves; Right: ready for drinking!)
The tall cup is generally used as the smelling cup. Smelling is an equally important part of the tea “tasting” process as is drinking. The tea server usually pours the tea into the tall cup first. To smell, the cup is moved back and forth under the nose WITHOUT moving the head. For the second smell, the tall cup is then emptied into the the shorter cup and returned to the nose while still inverted, as to not let the tea’s aroma escape. It is turned over and then smelled again. The tea is then drank from the shorter cup. The drinker should finish the small cup in three separate drinks.
No Taiwan Teahouse trip would be complete without some delicious snacks. They had a great menu, from which we ordered sticky rice cakes made with 山藥 (San-yao), which translates literally to “mountain medicine” in Chinese. This is a kind of Chinese yam with some very healthy constipation and lower cholesterol levels by improving the function of the mucosal surface of the digestive system. There is also a chemical called disoscorine in the yam which prevents the body from rapidly absorbing glucose, and therefore helps to control blood sugar levels. I know that is probably way more than you ever needed to know about this particular yam, but since we eat this at home a lot (yes they have it in the U.S.) and I am a total science nerd, I thought I would share my research.
Pictured above is a tray of different nuts, seeds, candies, tea cakes sold there.
I heard green tea was good for health as well. It is tastier as a beverage, I must say.
Good authentic tea, fresh mountain air and a beautiful Taipei skyline...
Here are couple of nice shots we took from the mountain, outside of the tea house. The biggest illuminated tower you see in the distance (on the right) is Taipei 101, which is the tallest building in the world with 101 floors above ground and stands at 1667ft / 508m.
Well, that made for a very long and exciting day. We pretty much covered all the basics: how tea is picked, how it is dried, fermented, roasted, rolled, dried some more, and then rolled some more. We learned how tea is prepared and how to properly drink it, including how to use all the tea utensils, pottery and cups. Now that we feel comfortable with the basics of the process, we can start our journey to explore the different kinds of tea, as well as the parts of Taiwan they come from. Much more excitement to come, stay tuned!
(be sure to check out the photo album to see larger sized photos - comments are appreciated on the blog and photos! :)
This article is published in the following three locations:
1. West Meets 東 Voting Website Day 1 (If you like this article or our team, please go vote for us here )
2. West Meets 東 Day 1 Mao-Kong Tea House for Gin-Shan Tea and Tea Snack
3. Althea's Wretch Blog Day 1-3 Mao-Kong Tea House for Gin-Shan Tea and Tea Snack
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